Starting a Cycle Club - Woking

Me and a bunch of friends are considering starting a cycle club. We've registered the domain, got a website, all we're lacking is members. I'm wondering whether it's worth all the effort what with affiliations, admin etc. when all we really want is a group of us to enjoy what we do with other like-minded individuals.

Would like to hear from others who have started clubs and also those local to Woking who'd be interested in joining us.

We do regular Sunday morning rides mostly over the Surrey Hills (40-50m).

Good on you for putting it together - I'm no blazer-wearing rules afficionado, but if you call yourselves a Cycling Club would new members expect to be able to join races and events as affiliated club members?
I'm part of a club and also an informal ride-out group that has no name or rules; each meets different needs.

Good on you for doing this. I'm part of a club that was formed a few years ago out of a group of lads that just liked riding bikes. We've got BC affiliation, but it's a very small minority of us who race.

I found them because I googled around for a small club without political agendas, annual general meetings and the like. The unique selling point of ours is that we ride out earlier (8am) than others, so we tend to attract people who have kids etc and can't simply block out most of the daylight hours every Sunday for riding.

Get yourself some jerseys, and encourage everyone to behave and ride responsibly while wearing them. Try and get your LBS to subsidise them with their name on them, and get a couple of posters put up in the shop.

Your website is decent, and you sound like a friendly lot (I read the bit about doing away with the excuses for not doing sportives). Maybe get some pictures up which show that you are in fact human and not all 9-stone racing snakes with intimidating calf muscles and aero-shaped heads.

Get a facebook page, link up with all the members, post some stuff and get a few likes. Link to a club page on Strava and show people where you've been. The members will come, I'm sure.

Good luck.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice...

Strangely enough, most of us are middle aged guys with kids which see's us riding out to the likes of Ranmore, Newlands, Box Hill for 9am on a Sunday morning. Painful this time of year but rewarding seeing the sunrise. The long term goal will be to provide racing support to those that want to. But at the moment we're guys who are enjoying getting fitter and riding further, faster. I'm waiting for the BC guys to come back to me with info.

I've already lined up some sponsors, so subsidising jerseys etc won't be a problem. It's agreeing on a design which is the challenge - too many cooks.